# International Emergency Economic Powers Act The **International Emergency Economic Powers Act** (Pub. L. 95-223, 1977, codified at 50 U.S.C. §§ 1701–1708) authorizes the President, after declaring a national emergency under the [[National Emergencies Act]] with respect to an "unusual and extraordinary threat" originating substantially outside the United States, to investigate, block, regulate, and prohibit transactions in property in which a foreign interest exists. It was enacted to narrow the Trading with the Enemy Act, which prior presidents had used in peacetime. In practice IEEPA became the workhorse of the American sanctions system: most designations administered by the [[Office of Foreign Assets Control]] rest on it. Its outer limit was set on February 20, 2026, when the Supreme Court held in [[Learning Resources v. Trump]] that IEEPA does not authorize tariffs. The word "tariff" appears nowhere in the statute, and the Court read the delegation not to reach the taxing power. ## What it has been used for IEEPA is the statutory floor under most of the American sanctions state. Roughly two-thirds of the national emergencies ever declared under the [[National Emergencies Act]] exist to unlock it — Iran (1979, the first, still running), [[Libya]], Iraq, the Balkans, terrorism after 2001, narcotics traffickers, cyber actors, Russia in 2014 and 2022, Venezuela, the [[Global Magnitsky Act]] program — and the [[Office of Foreign Assets Control]] administers the designations under it. Congress narrowed it twice: the 1988 Berman Amendment carved out informational materials (books, films, and, contested, software), and the 2001 Patriot Act added the power to block assets pending investigation. The second Trump administration used it for tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China (February 2025) and then for the [[Liberation Day Tariffs]] of April 2, 2025 on the whole world — a use no President had attempted in the statute's forty-eight years. ## The litigation The [[Court of International Trade]] held in May 2025 that the Act does not authorize tariffs; the Federal Circuit affirmed en banc; and the Supreme Court held 6–3 in *[[Learning Resources v. Trump]]* (February 20, 2026) that a statute that never mentions tariffs cannot delegate the taxing power, sending some $166 billion back to importers and the administration to § 122 and then § 301 for replacements. The sanctions power was untouched. What the case settled is the distinction the [[Emergency Powers Crosswalk]] draws: an emergency statute written to *block* foreign property cannot be read to *tax* domestic imports, however the emergency is described. See [[Sanctions Designation Pipeline]] for the power that survived and [[Tariffs]] for the one that did not. ## See also - [[Sanctions Designation Pipeline]] — the process flow of a designation made under this Act, end to end - [[Trading with the Enemy Act]] — the wartime ancestor this Act was written to narrow - [[National Emergencies Act]] - [[Emergency Powers Crosswalk]]